


The Evolution of...

by Winterstar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, post Bruce/Natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha gets ready to go out but on her way she finds a lost Steve Rogers. She decides it's time someone did something about their lost Captain. (Post AoU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Evolution of...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegraytigress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/gifts).



> This work is for [thegraytigress](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress) who writes lovely hurt Steve Rogers stories and wonderful Steve/Natasha stories as well. I decided to give a little back to her, though this is not my regular pairing. I hope I did it justice.

On days like these, she goes out. She dresses, she applies her makeup with just the right amount of finesse. She knows how to highlight her best features and knows how to hide the worst. Of course, most men (or women) when they see her cannot identify or even define those worst features. She keeps them tucked away, hided, and concealed. The makeup really isn’t necessary to vanquish them. All her flaws, her dirty little secrets lie inside, hibernating like a Russian bear ready to feast on her hopes and dreams. She’s too used to them to think they’ll ever be wiped away. She’s understands she’s a person who comes with flaws and heart ache. 

But her shields, her talents, her intelligence, and her ability to endure makes her stronger than any opponent, any assailant. Today, she has no enemies to fight, but the ones inside, the bear ready to claw its way out of her subconscious where she keeps it locked away. Today, she’s preparing to go out, capture some unsuspecting man or woman and do what black widows do. 

Mate and feast.

She finishes up her makeup, and then checks her hair. It’s long again, and straighter. She likes it this way. It’s more of who she thinks she might be inside. Changing her hair style sometimes feels like a cheat, as if she can clip and cut, or extend and straighten to be a new person entirely, when in fact she’s always the same. The same inside.

She frowns. The months of introspection hasn’t done her any good. She needs to go out and eat. She needs to devour a soul so she can find her way back to Natasha. She’d tried on many different coats, different fashions to figure herself out. Ever since the Winter Soldier and the dump of who she was on the internet, Natasha has been searching for – for Natasha.

Playing the victim may have been one of the ways to go.

Trying to flirt and show how very wounded she was inside worked for a bit.

And yet, she’s glad of it. How it all turned out. Bruce had been more perceptive than she had been. Sometimes she loses herself in all the shadows of who she plays. Maybe Bruce hadn’t seen through it, maybe he’d only been frightened of himself and his other self. He left and she came to realize, to comprehend how ‘un’ self she had been. She’d been so off center she hadn’t even considered breaking out of Ultron’s cage. It says something about a spy when an old metal cage can hold said spy.

It couldn’t – not really – but she’d come to the end of her rope. She’d been reminded of things, of histories past, and couldn’t find her way clear of them. She made grand jumps in logic about how her infertility linked her to Bruce and his inability to settle down and have a ‘normal’ life. What was a normal life anyhow? How could she even want one when she never even experienced it? 

Society tells her she wants to be ‘normal’. She wants a life where she has a picket fence and a husband and a crazy job and children to stress her every day. Society tells her a lot of lies and, she cannot believe in her haze of identity loss, she believed them.

Now, she feels all the stronger for it. Somewhat thankful to Bruce for leaving her, because she needs to clear away the lies and remember who Natasha Romanoff is. She defines Natasha – no one else. That’s how it is has been since she walked away from Russia, and that is how it will always be from now on. Regardless of who she works for and who she fights for.

She completes her outfit. White silk blouse, tight black leather skirt, knee high boots with lace tie ups. She looks good, she likes it. She smiles. This is the Black Widow and Natasha owns her definition, no one else.

She leaves her rooms in the New Avengers Headquarters, grabbing her keys on the way with a little black clutch. Maybe she’ll ask Steve to use his bike for the night. She’d like that. He’d trust her.

She heads toward his quarters but stops as she passes the common room. Steve’s there. He barely comes out to the common room. And never is seen outside the gym in anything but his uniform. He breathes and lives Captain America all the time. She can’t remember the last time she even actually called him Steve. No one calls him Steve anymore. Everyone calls him Captain. He’s left Steve Rogers behind. 

She pauses before she enters into the common room, considering him. He’s standing near the windows, broad back stretching out a t-shirt that’s probably two sizes too small. Frowning, she makes a mental note to bring the man shopping or at least get him on the right sites online. She bypasses the couches and the tables, the large screen television mounted on the wall. The common room is used more frequently by the younger recruits than by the established Avengers. Most of the established Avengers end up hanging in Vision’s suite of rooms or Sam’s quarters.

“Rogers,” Natasha says.

He doesn’t twitch or move.

“Steve.”

Not a muscle flinch to show he’s aware of her presence. He’s only staring out of the long stretch of windows.

“Captain,” Natasha finally says and he turns around to look at her.

A troubled expression vanishes from his face and he hardens, straightens. “Yes?” He even tries to notch his fingers at his belt as if he’s still in his uniform.

Her original motive, to ask for his bike for the night, flies out of her head. “I’m going into town, pizza.” She’s not dressed for pizza, she’s dressed to kill. But that endeavor is gone as well.

“Nice,” he says and nods. At that moment, she recognizes not her Captain, but Steve Rogers – the ninety pound weakling who had dreams and hopes. Who wished for family and home but never had them as an adult.

“Yeah, it is,” she says. “Get your jacket.”

“Natasha, I have a lot of wo-.”

“What staring out the window?” Natasha says, shaking her head. “No, you don’t. Get your jacket and your helmet. I’m driving.”

“What?” 

“Meet you in the garage.”

She doesn’t leave him time to protest, she only disappears down the hallway and skips down the staircase to the underground garage housing their ground vehicles. She leans against the bike, waiting for him, trying not to figure out what the hell she’s doing.

When he appears, he has his worn brown leather jacket on, and no helmet. 

“You have to wear a helmet, it’s the law in New York State,” she says.

“So do you,” he says and steps over to the bank of lockers at the concrete wall. He retrieves two helmets and throws one to her. “I’m driving. No one drives the bike but me.”

She rolls her eyes. “I have.”

“Killer robot situations are special circumstances,” he says. “Plus, that wasn’t this bike.”

He swings his leg over the seat and waits as she hops on. In seconds he revs the bike and easily turns it to ride into the open, fresh air of Upstate New York. She wishes they didn’t have to wear the helmets, she’d like to feel the wind in her hair, on her face. He speaks through the helmet comm.

“Which pizza place?”

“The one across the street from the lake, near the old five and dime store.” The store is closed but he’ll know what she’s talking about – though she has no idea if he even goes to town anymore at all. He’s always squirreled away in his quarters or beating the hell out of punching bags. She keeps her hands on his legs, leaning into the curves, trying to keep in balance with him so that it’s easy for him to maneuver the bike. 

It doesn’t take long to get to the pizzeria. It’s a small place, tucked in between the used book store and the laundromat with the closed five and dime store up the street. He parks the bike two storefronts down and they head toward the restaurant in silence. Steve has his hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, but it’s not cold. It’s a warm Autumn evening. 

She eyes him, wondering, and calculating at the same time. What happened to Steve? The guy she knew that wanted to take down SHIELD and find his buddy. She squints at him, but he only opens the door for her and waits as she enters the pizzeria.

They’re shown to a table by a girl in a black t-shirt, with rings in her nose and lower lip, and hair too black for her complexion. She hands them the menus that are laminated and sticky from not being cleaned properly. Natasha scans the menu.

All the while, she keeps thinking what the hell is she doing here? She’d planned to go to the club on the other side of town, pick up a willing participant, and get laid. Now, she’s playing analyst to her Captain.

When the waiter comes – a young boy with lanky limbs but a pleasant smile, Steve orders two large pepperoni pizzas with extra sausage on one. Steve looks at her expectantly and so she figures she should order as well. She picks out a calzone and a Buffalo wings with a salad on the side. She’s hungry and will work it off tonight. 

When the boy waiter leaves, Steve turns to her and says, “What’s up?”

“Why does anything have to be up? Can’t we have a pizza like old times?”

“We never had pizza before, and you didn’t order pizza,” Steve says.

She tilts her head, and tries to find him in that stoic, self-deprecating expression. “What’s going on with you, Steve?”

“Lots, I should be at base, working on the latest stra-.”

“No, you shouldn’t. We don’t have anything to worry about, Steve. There’s no big bad out there right now,” Natasha says.

“I have to write up a White Paper on what I think about this Registration Act. Tony supports it, did you know that? I’m surprised considering he’s always seemed to me to be a free agent, wanting to do whatever he thinks is necessary to get the job done.”

“I.E. Ultron.”

“Exactly,” Steve says and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Tell me what you think about it?”

“What I think is that Steve Rogers needs to loosen up a little.”

“Not sure what you mean by that,” Steve says and slumps back. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m cutting lose right now.”

“You may know how to talk the talk, Steve, but you’re not walking the walk.”

“That’s surprisingly coherent, but not true,” Steve returns as the food is served. 

Before she pours her dressing on the salad he’s already consumed two slices of the pizza. “Whoa there, try and chew.”

“What? I’m hungry.” 

“You don’t eat much at home?” When she says it, it is half joking but there’s a slant to his shoulders, his mouth that tells a different story.

“I eat,” Steve says and looks everywhere but at her.

“You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“Sure, Natasha, just like you’d tell me if something was wrong,” he says and there’s a pain of distance in his eyes.

She deserved that one, she cut everyone out after the whole Bruce fiasco. She treads lightly back into that territory. She wants him to open to her and she’s not exactly sure why. “You know, you’re right. I shut down. I shouldn’t have.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to do that and expect me to follow with some big confession,” he says and pulls off his third slice.

“No, I don’t. I suppose you’re right,” Natasha says and feels all the poorer for it. “But still, I’m your partner in this, you know. I’m your second.”

“Or first, depends on how you look at it,” he says with a grin.

“I am not sure, but did Captain America just make a dirty joke?” 

He colors prettily, his cheeks pink up and he looks down at the half eaten pizza. “Natasha, you don’t have to go there. I don’t need you to check in with me.”

“Why not, because you’re the leader no one makes sure you’re okay?” Natasha says and cuts into the calzone. 

“Not exactly,” he says and shrugs. “I’m fine, I’m good.”

“You don’t seem good, Steve. You seem like you’re trying your best to forget who Steve Rogers is and playing at being only a soldier, only Captain America. That’s not healthy, believe me.”

He doesn’t reply, only plays with the ends of the crust in his hands.

She continues, venturing carefully into her own emotional landmine. “After SHIELD, and the whole internet dump, I told you I needed to go find a new cover.”

“Yeah, I remember.” He peers up through his lidded lashes.

“Well, I didn’t really know how to find me, you know,” Natasha says and knows she’s stepping out onto that place where she can either be completely honest or latch onto falsehoods again. “I tried on some things that didn’t fit.”

He looks up. She has his attention now.

“I made mistakes, mistakes that could have cost people their lives because I wanted to try on things that weren’t for me. I was hiding, submerged in some fairy tale that could never be me. Listen, Barton, Clint, he’s my best friend. We’ve had each other’s backs for a while now. I’ve always looked at his life in wonder. His little family.”

“Yeah,” Steve says and there’s a long lost look on his face. Natasha knows that look, it feels so very close to her heart, she thinks she might be looking in a mirror.

“I used to envy him, I thought I could capture that, I even tried for it. But Bruce and I- we’re not in the right place.”

“You have feelings for him,” Steve says and when Natasha meets his gaze she glimpses a pained admission there. It surprises her.

“Feelings I misinterpreted because I was grasping for a handhold, a definition of who I could be in this new post spy world.” 

“What does that mean?” His voice is steady, level, but there’s a light in his eyes that nearly takes her breath away.

“It means I’m glad Bruce – well not glad- I hope he comes back – but I’m glad we didn’t go off together. Because I lied to him.”

“You lied?” He doesn’t look surprised and that hurts, scores deep inside of her – more than she’s willing to admit. 

“Yeah, I told him something about myself, I told him about how I was trained, how my ability to have children had been taken away from me,” Natasha says and, it amazes her that saying this to Steve feels completely different. She doesn’t have to act like it hurts, that it is a deep scar. It might be scar but it is one she’s learned to live with, that she’s come to terms with. She can find so much fulfillment elsewhere in her life, that children are not her destination. “I said I couldn’t have what Clint had, either. I asked him who was the monster?”

“Natasha,” Steve says and he winces so slightly – her words, calling herself a monster, pains him.

“I don’t think that, don’t worry. I was stupid. I was grasping for a way to relate to him. I found Bruce, and Bruce represented a way to feel good about myself. I was stupid and I probably scared him away,” Natasha says. “I’m guilty of that.”

“Don’t Natasha, it was Bruce’s decision.”

“Or the Hulk’s.”

“Yeah, I’m sure, or not,” he says and shakes his head. “You seem good now?”

“I am, and I want you to be good too, Steve,” she says and knows it is genuinely true.

“I’m fine, good, okay,” he says as if he’s trying to convince himself. 

“Oh Rogers, you have to do a lot better than that to convince someone like me,” Natasha smiles at him and it feels like the first real smile that’s turned her lips in months. 

He smirks and bows his head as he says, “Yeah, I figured as much.” He looks up and says, “Sometimes, just sometimes, you remind me a lot of Bucky.”

“Whoa there, I’m not sure how I should take that.”

He puts up his hands and says, “All good. You, and him, you – you’re natural, you tell it how it is. But you try and protect people, too. It’s kind of goofy.”

She laughs. “Did you just call me goofy?”

“Yeah, I think I did.”

They both laugh then and it clears out the shadows and the pains that have haunted her for months. “Tell me Rogers, are you going to stay holed up in that training facility for the rest of your life?”

He presses his lips into a thin line. “Not much else to do, not much cause for a man with a flag painted on his chest these days.”

She leans over the table and stretches out, captures one of his hands. “I didn’t ask about Captain America, I asked about Steve Rogers. When are you going to let him out, let him be – someone?”

He stares at their clasped hands and remains silent for far too long. She wonders if she’s gone too far, asked too much. When he looks up, she catches the innocence, the hope, and the loss. The loss is so great and so wide it digs holes in her own chest, rips open her own jaded soul. 

“I’m not sure there’s a Steve Rogers left to be,” he says in a quiet whisper. But it isn’t hopeless, in the way he says it. In fact, she sees a sincere glimmer of hope laced through his words, in his eyes, in his features. He seeks and waits for her to return his venture, his offering.

“Maybe there is,” she says. “Sometimes, sometimes, you need to redefine yourself.” 

When she states these words the world around them goes black, the pizzeria disappears, the lights, the tables, the other patrons, the noises, all dissipate. She’s looking, concentrating only on him. She can feel the pulse points in his wrist, the heat of his hand, slightly warm but not sweaty. 

“I’m not sure I know how,” he murmurs but doesn’t shift his gaze from her. 

“Sure you do,” Natasha says. “You got into that pod and came out a new man. How about now, you don’t even have to let a German scientist experiment on you.”

“How about a Russian spy?”

She should be shocked, she should laugh. But she does neither of those things. She smiles and it feels like home and perfect and in all ways. 

“Would you settle for an Avenger?”

His lips curl upward and he looks like a twelve year old boy. Shy and abashed. She could be so lucky.

And she is.

“I don’t think that’s settling at all.”

THE END.


End file.
